Parrots and Jackals Symbol Analysis

Parrots and jackals represent two different ways that scholars can relate to the subjects they study: by faithfully carrying on their legacies (parrots) or by dishonestly exploiting those legacies for their own benefit (jackals).

Notably, Desai sets up this symbolism by showing Deven read his son Manu a book of moral fables about animals in Chapter Four. This is almost certainly a children’s edition of the famous Sanskrit Panchatantra, which includes many well-known stories (with different morals) about both parrots and jackals. A few pages later, Deven and Manu see a flock of squawking parrots on a nearby tree, and Deven picks up one of their fallen feathers. He feels a brief sense of peace and remembers his obligations to his son. At the very end of the novel, Deven returns to this spot, where he remembers the parrot’s feather as “a joyous, delightful omen.” Shortly thereafter, he realizes that his true calling is to be the “custodian of Nur’s genius” and represent his work and legacy to the rest of the world. The parrot feather leads Deven to identify his purpose as a father and  a scholar. In this sense, Desai associates parrots—which learn to faithfully repeat what they hear—with passing on wisdom and fulfilling one’s obligations to future generations.

In contrast, “jackal” is one of the most common insults in the book: Deven and Siddiqui call the registrar Rai “Mr. Jackal,” and Imtiaz compares university researchers to “jackals” who “feed upon [poets’] carcasses.” In both cases, scholars become jackals—opportunistic dogs who eat anything they can scavenge—when they use others’ work for their own benefit, without producing anything of value. Deven gets dangerously close to becoming one: when he begs Siddiqui for funding, Desai writes that he “howl[s], jackal-like, on his knees.”